S.N. McGannon

Posted on October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 by snmcgannon · 1 Comment

Ranking of Finnish Universities, 2021

Helsingin tuomiokirkko. Kuva: Steven McGannon.

Rank	Institution	Change from 2020	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
🥇	*University of Helsinki (Helsingin yliopisto)*	–	82	104	101	94	95.25
🥈	*Aalto University (Aalto-yliopisto)*	–	301	112	201	275	222.25
🥉	*University of Turku (Turun yliopisto)*	–	301	295	351	327	318.5
4	*University of Oulu (Oulun yliopisto)*	+1	401	377	251	422	362.75
5	*Tampere University (Tampereen yliopisto)*	-1	501	414	251	354	380
UR	University of Vaasa (Vaasan yliopisto)	NA	NR	NR	401	NR	401
6	*Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT-yliopisto)*	+2	NR	414	251	635	~433.33
7	*University of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylän yliopisto)*	–	701	358	351	556	491.5
8	*University of Eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen yliopisto)*	-2	601	521	501	441	516
9	*Åbo Akademi University (Åbo Akademi)*	–	NR	NR	601	947	774

Figure 1. Ranking of Nordic Universities 2021-2022

This is a ranking of the top universities in Finland ranked relative to each other for the year 2021-22.

Overview and methodology

The ranking was created by using metadata sourced from the four prominent rankings of world universities (each ranking released in 2021): Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), and U.S. News & World Report (USNWR).

Rank was determined on each list for every Finnish university ranked on any list. Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown above (Figure 1). The leftmost column shows rank based on average, the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, the “Change from 2020” column shows the change in ranking placement from last year’s ranking, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

Only universities which were ranked on at least two lists are counted. Universities which would have appeared had they been ranked by all the rankings are displayed in the ranking where they would have ranked if their average rank was the result of an average across all four rankings. Thus, University of Vaasa is shown between the 5th and 6th ranked universities, as it would have ranked 6th if it appeared on at least two rankings (and maintained its average from the ranking it did appear on). Rather than receiving a ranking placement, universities appearing in these positions (in this case, only Vaasa) are marked “UR” (unrankable) in the rank column, and “NR” (not ranked) in rankings lists in which they were not ranked.

Observations

Overall, Finnish universities have advanced in world university rankings in 2021. Whereas last year ranked Finnish universities average sum came out to 3697.5 (2020), this year the sum is ~3593.58 (2021) — a roughly 104 place difference upward. In addition, University of Vaasa appears on one of this year’s ranking lists, whereas last year it was unranked across lists.
Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology was the biggest gainer, moving from 575.5 to approx. 433.33 — a gain of about 142 places.
Another indicator of the success of Finnish universities is seen in University of Oulu taking over the 4th spot from Tampere University. Tampere University’s seeming downward movement is actually merely because University of Oulu has improved more quickly: both universities have made significant advances in the rankings. University of Oulu moved upward from 415.75 to 362.75 (+53), and meanwhile, Tampere University moved upward from 393 to 380 (+13). Thus, Oulu moved ahead of Tampere in the Finnish rankings, but both universities moved upward in the world rankings.
Aalto University has continued to improved as well, moving from 248.25 to 222.25. It could well become a top-200 staple in a few years’ time.
In a negative point for Finnish universities, Finland’s traditionally strongest university — the University of Helsinki — continues to move downward in world university rankings. This continues a trend starting in 2015 or so. This year it moved downward from 90.5 to 95.25. It is unclear if it will maintain top-100 status for much longer.

In my opinion, global university rankings are not a measure of how “good” a university is. They are, centrally, a measure of university reputation among people in administrative positions in academics. How good a university is for you depends on what your goals are. It is almost entirely contextual. Thus, the rankings I do — which are based on average placements in world university rankings — ought to be seen not as a measure of how good a university is, but as a measure of the average opinion of an academic administrator you’ll get if you ask them to talk about a given university from a global perspective. In this spirit, I offer you a deflationary university ranking.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Permalink to this article: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/10/26/ranking-of-finnish-universities-2021/

Posted on October 26, 2021October 27, 2021 by snmcgannon · 1 Comment

Ranking of Nordic Universities, 2021

Rank	Institution	Change from 2020	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
UR	Karolinska Institute 🇸🇪	NA	42	NR	39	48	43
🥇	University of Copenhagen 🇩🇰	–	30	79	96	37	60.5
🥈	University of Oslo 🇳🇴	+1	61	102	119	90	93
🥉	University of Helsinki 🇫🇮	-1	82	104	101	94	95.25
4	Aarhus University 🇩🇰	+1	71	155	104	103	108.25
5	Uppsala University 🇸🇪	-1	78	124	131	113	111.5
6	Lund University 🇸🇪	–	151	87	116	95	112.25
7	Stockholm University 🇸🇪	–	74	148	176	123	130.25
8	Technical University of Denmark 🇩🇰	–	151	99	185	161	149
9	University of Gothenburg 🇸🇪	–	101	180	185	134	150
10	KTH Royal Institute of Technology 🇸🇪	–	201	89	201	212	175.75
11	University of Bergen 🇳🇴	–	301	199	201	183	221
12	Aalto University 🇫🇮	+1	301	112	201	275	222.25
13	Aalborg University 🇩🇰	+1	301	326	201	241	267.25
14	Chalmers University of Technology 🇸🇪	-2	401	121	251	339	278
15	University of Southern Denmark 🇩🇰	+1	301	309	251	255	279
UR	Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences 🇸🇪	NA	201	NR	301	348	~283.3
16	Norwegian University of Science and Technology 🇳🇴	-1	101	369	401	266	284.25
UR	Reykjavík University 🇮🇸	NA	NR	NR	301	NR	301
17	Linköping University 🇸🇪	+2	301	329	251	350	307.75
18	University of Turku 🇫🇮	-1	301	295	351	327	318.5
19	University of Oulu 🇫🇮	NA	401	377	251	422	362.75
20	Umeå University 🇸🇪	-2	401	365	351	335	363

Figure 1. Ranking of Nordic Universities 2021-2022

This is a ranking of the top 20 Nordic universities of 2021.

Overview

Rank was determined on each list for every Nordic university ranked on each list. If a ranking used a range, the highest possible rank was chosen (e.g., if a university was ranked within a 201-250 bracket, 201 was chosen). Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown above (Figure 1). The leftmost column shows rank based on average, the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, the “Change from 2020” column shows the change in ranking placement from last year’s ranking (Ranking of Nordic Universities, 2020), the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

Only universities which were ranked on all four lists are counted. Universities which would have appeared had they been ranked by all the rankings are displayed in the ranking where they would have ranked if their average rank was the result of an average across all four rankings. Thus, for example, Karolinska Institute is shown above the #1 ranked University of Copenhagen, as it would have ranked #1 if it appeared on all four rankings (and maintained its average from the rankings it did appear on). Rather than receiving a ranking placement, universities appearing in these positions are marked “UR” (unrankable) in the rank column, and “NR” (not ranked) in rankings lists in which they were not ranked.

Observations

ARWU best predicts the summed average.
QS worst predicts the summed average.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Permalink to this article: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/10/26/ranking-of-nordic-universities-2021/

Posted on April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 by snmcgannon

Do you ever wonder how English got the “han/hanen” pronoun?

There was once a time when children in English-speaking countries were assigned one of two pronoun pairs at birth. Nowadays, most people probably don’t even remember what those were.

While it’s easy to imagine that we always used the “han/hanen” pronoun pair, in fact, these words only came into use after centuries of a problematic deployment of an archaic binary pronoun division. And it was not these archaic English forerunners which gave way to our current usage.

But first, what were those forerunners?

There was a time when a child was assigned either the “he/his” pronoun pair or the “she/her” pronoun pair. Historians are divided on what the precise factors were which went into making the decision about which pair a child received, but there is a strong consensus that those who received “she/her” were designated to a lower-level status in society.

At one time, those designated with the “she/her” pronoun were prohibited from participating in even the most basic elements of society, such as working and voting, let alone activities like pursuing a hobby, higher education, or political leadership.

Additionally, for centuries there was almost no say in which category you were designated — once you were assigned, that was it. This was true even as late as the 2020s.

So, where did we get “han/hanen”?

While no one knows exactly how this pronoun pair entered into popular usage in the English language, historians hypothesize that our word “han” derives originally from the Finnish word “hän” (pronounced the same as in English). In Finnish, “hän” is just like our “han”: it is one pronoun pair which can be used to refer to anybody.

Further evidence for the Finnish derivation is supported by the fact that our possessive pronoun — hanen — also mirrors the much older Finnish word “hänen” (which is, itself, a possessive pronoun for the Finnish “hän”, and is also pronounced the same as in English).

Sociologist Eeva Karjalainen has conjectured that the adoption of “han” in English may have been somehow connected to the increase in the recognition of “they” as a singular pronoun in English around the turn of the 21st century. It is notable, for instance, that “hän” was often translated to English as “they” during that time.

While it is unclear exactly how we borrowed these words from Finnish, what is clear is that our abandonment of the archaic, stratifying pronoun system would eventually help lead (along with the overthrow of the system and, thus, systemic racism) to the gender-equal society we know today.

Modern day English speakers should feel a deep gratitude toward the Finns, who long ago found the binary pronoun division deeply inadequate and deeply flawed.

Posted on April 12, 2021April 14, 2021 by snmcgannon

A Former Student Remembers Paul Rabinow

There was this one time, during my senior year at UC Berkeley, I showed up to Anthropology of the Contemporary about a half-hour early. It was held in one of the Anthro department conference rooms — the larger one, where the AUA meetings were held, at the intersection of the hall near the waiting room and the bathrooms. The door was usually locked, but that day it stood open a crack. I remember lingering outside for a moment, listening to hear if there was a meeting or some event going on inside. But it was silent, and so I let my guard down and pushed it open. There, alone, at the head of the room sat Paul Rabinow. You might think it shouldn’t have been a surprise — it was his class, after all (even if he hardly got around to handing out the syllabus). But facing him there in the low-lit room, alone, waiting, still took me aback. And that was before I realized I was about to have to try to impress the unimpressible for the next half-hour, before class would begin.

I didn’t know Paul Rabinow — or “Rainbow”, as he sometimes referred to himself, having must have beared the student mispronunciations for decades — very well, in a personal sense (outside school, i.e.). But today I read, on Berkeley’s student paper The Daily Californian, that he has died. However, I will say that I certainly remember him, that I learned a lot from him, and that I think of him often. Thus, I felt compelled to write something of what I remember of him, as a former undergrad student of his.

I don’t remember every detail of our pre-class conversation that day I showed up early. But I do remember a couple things, including the general topic: Wittgenstein. That semester I happened to also be taking Barry Stroud’s course on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (Stroud’s final offering of that course, as it would turn out). So Wittgenstein was an acute topic for me, and besides, I was also majoring in philosophy and — like all undergrad philosophy majors — I liked to bring up the fact that I was doing so as often as possible. I don’t know how I introduced the topic, but I remember that it came up quite easily, and didn’t need to be forced at all. Rainbow listened, attentive, genuinely interested — perhaps not so much in my thoughts about Wittgenstein, but in me as a student, in me as someone who was also genuinely interested (he gave me the impression he must have listened to all of his students in this way). After I was finished saying whatever it was I said, Rainbow told me his own thoughts about Wittgenstein. I wish I could remember what those were, altogether, but what I remember is his final gist: that Wittgenstein had some interesting things to say, but that he ultimately “…left me cold” (his words). This was particularly interesting to me, because I felt I sort of understood what he meant, but I wasn’t sure why I understood — as I didn’t share the feeling.

But, what was it that didn’t leave Rainbow cold? These are the things I most remember from class, and the things I often pass on to other people, and which I always attribute to Rainbow.

One of these things was an early assignment we had that semester: to read Bertolt Brecht’s Writing the Truth, Five Difficulties. Written in 1935, amid a gathering fascism, this paper sets out — in stark terms — what it takes to really write something, with conviction. When I first read this, I found it very frustrating. I kept asking myself, “But what does Brecht mean by ‘the truth’?” My contribution to the class discussion on this (Rainbow always held the classes seminar-style) were probably quite meek, mostly because I didn’t really have much insight into what was going on in the paper, since I’d set myself the trouble of “not being able to understand what Brecht means by ‘the truth'”. But nowadays — and during the latter part of Trump’s reign — this was a go-to, must-read, gotta-send-you sort of piece that I would reference often. It might’ve taken me a while to get around to understanding it, and I had ample assistance from the material circumstances of the world which made it impossible to avoid. It’s a good thing we had Rainbow, or else it would have been possible to avoid.

Another of these things was Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Rainbow used to call us “barbarians”. He used to say that we didn’t even know what that word meant (it turned out he was using the word literally, as the ancient Greeks did, to refer to those who weren’t versed in Greek language and custom). It seemed to bring him a glint of joy to watch us struggle, in our “barbarian” way, to string together connections between the seemingly disparate things he decided to talk about on any given day. Coriolanus was a disparate thing. I wasn’t taken with Coriolanus (or Shakespeare — little did Rainbow know I’d written a screed in high school triumphantly declaring Shakespeare as definitively boring), but I did notice that I found it impressive in some way that we were focusing on Coriolanus — of all Shakespeare plays. And then I thought, for the first time, as we watched a YouTube video of a performance of the scene with the rotted fens, that there was really some pretty good writing going on. It was for that spark of interest that I, the disinterested, went out and bought a copy of Coriolanus the semester afterward. It’s a good thing we had Rainbow, or else Shakespeare would be boring yet.

The last of these things I’ll share here is Max Weber’s Science as a Vocation. Weber was the kind of theorist that I really didn’t care to hear about at that time in my academic life. By then I had disavowed all the anthropology I’d ever studied — it was the final class I needed for the major, after all. I’d shifted to philosophy to get away from just that kind of continental thing. Here, again, I found myself with the sort of frustrations I’d had with Brecht’s work earlier in the course. What does Weber mean? What’s the point of this? Here, too, as with Brecht, my own contributions to the class discussion were limited. What interest could all this comparison of American and German universities really have for me? I kept thinking about the “conceptual grounds” of the piece. I kept analyzing it in abstract terms: how does someone hold to conducting research knowing they probably won’t be recognized or remembered for it? How do they go on knowing they’ll be surpassed eventually; when it won’t even matter in the long run? e.g. I always got that it was supposed to be about something practical, and I always identified with having — perhaps not science — but academics as a vocation, but I would only come to really get the drift later on. My academic plans back then resemble in almost no way my academic present. The course that took me from 2017 Berkeley to 2021 Helsinki was foreseen in no way, but it forced on me what it means when academics is your vocation — no longer a conceptual thing to-be-understood, but an unavoidable, practical, material circumstance. This was what Weber was really talking about, I thought to myself, and this is how Rainbow wanted to prepare us. I’ve thought back to this orientation point many times since that class, and that it’s a good thing we had Rainbow.

Now I think I have a better idea why I understood what Rainbow meant when he said Wittgenstein left him cold, despite my feeling differently: it’s because Rainbow made me, and us, pay genuine attention, in the way that he did. I couldn’t help but understand, in other words. This is what it was to have Rainbow as a teacher. His teaching method was to impart emulation — not so that we’d end up being little Rainbows, but so that we would learn the feel then, even as barbarian undergrads, what it is to write the truth, what it is to string together the connections, what it is to bear our vocations — and to do these things despite the myriad, disagreeing, conflicting, disparate difficulties they impose, both from within and without. In that way, to give us the experience to help us become ourselves. And that’s really what the best teachers are supposed to do. I am truly thankful to have had the opportunity to be a student of Professor Paul Rabinow, and to have been imparted with these thoughts because of him — whether I really “understand” what Brecht et al. meant or not. The world will have less truth in it now, so it’s all the more important — especially for those of us privileged enough to have had a class with him — to remember Rainbow and the truths he wrote and lived. I certainly do.

Now I understand why Rainbow thought the idea of handing out a syllabus was so laughable. Or as he once remarked to the class, shooting me a sly grin, “Do you think Wittgenstein had to worry about the syllabus?”

Steven N. McGannon

HELSINKI, Finland

*This article has been edited several times since I published it. In some cases, there were minor errors, in others, I wanted to make a point clearer, and so I added in or changed a sentence here and there.

Permalink to this article: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/04/12/remembering-paul-rabinow/

Posted on April 12, 2021April 12, 2021 by snmcgannon · 1 Comment

Ranking Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) University ala U.S. News (USNWR)

On my most recent rankings — Ranking of Universities in the EU — again appeared the mysterious case of U.S. News‘s lack of a ranking placement for France’s PSL University. PSL ranks very highly on the other three notable world rankings — ARWU, QS, and THE: as I noted in the ranking of EU universities, PSL averages approximately 45th in the world among those three rankings. This average is higher than any other university on the EU ranking (and below only the QS-unranked Karolinska Institute). However, in this article I am going to give an estimate of where USNWR would rank PSL.

PSL University is brand new, technically. It was only formally established as a university in 2019. Its constituents, however, are older — in some cases much, much older. It seems to be these constituents that cause trouble for USNWR, with regard to ranking. USNWR does not seem to realize that these various constituent colleges — which have existed separately for many years — are now, in fact, a single entity. This can be inferred from the fact that USNWR ranks some of these various constituent colleges of PSL. It is these ranking of the individual colleges from which I’ll now construct an averaged, would-be ranking for USNWR. Then, I’ll look at how that fits in with the average we get from the other three rankings. Finally, I’ll see how it squares away with the overall EU rankings.

1. Creating an average ranking of PSL constituents

So, how do the institutions USNWR ranks, rank?

All other PSL constituents are unranked by USNWR.

So what do we get? (252+402+499+1209+1209) / 5 = 714.2 = ~714

Thus, the best we can estimate from the available data is that USNWR would rank PSL around 714 in the world. My hunch is that USNWR would rank PSL — considered as one institution — significantly higher ala the other three rankings. For example, weaknesses in a certain faculty area at one constituent could be expected to be strengthened by another constituent. Along these lines, we should probably expect that these constituents combined would strengthen each other in greater proportion than they would weaken each other. This means that their average undervalues their would-be (and actually-is) collective strength. Further evidence for this is given by the fact that all the other rankings put PSL in or nearly-in the top 50 in the world. However, the above averaging is all we have to go on with regard to USNWR (since we cannot replicate their entire methodology), and despite being far-from-satisfactory, it’s better than what USNWR actually has to offer us in this regard (which is, again, no ranking).

2. Averaging the four rankings

What does PSL rank on the other rankings?

These together give us the average of 44.6666666667, or, ~45.

And how about with our estimate for USNWR? — Well, then we get 212.05, or, ~ 212.

Thus, PSL University’s average across three rankings + USNWR’s average for its ranked constituents = ~212.

3. How PSL compares to the top 20 universities in the EU, given the above

Given PSL’s average of approximately 212, this puts it well outside the top 20 universities in the EU. Currently, the university placing 20th is VU Amsterdam, with an average ranking of 133.25. If the trend of EU-university-worldwide-average continued roughly as it does between 0 and 134 (the interval in which roughly 20 universities place), then we can probably assume PSL places somewhere in the top 50 EU universities — even with an abysmal-by-comparison USNWR placement.

In conclusion, I think the average USNWR rank of PSL constituents is curious. The consistency with which other rankings place PSL at or around the top 50 makes the ~714 average highly suspect. Yes, we don’t have a full picture because not all constituents are ranked, but this is actually more concerning. That’s because the constituents not making the ranking suggests USNWR considers them as not-as-good-as those universities which did make the ranking. Thus, these unranked constituents would likely weigh down an overall PSL rank in a not insignificant way. That said, I also speculated that the constituents that are ranked could — when taken together — end up strengthening each disproportionate to their weaknesses. This would bump up the ranking above the average.

So in the end, I still wish USNWR would just rank PSL University outright so that we can get a better picture of how EU universities stack up.

Permalink: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/04/12/ranking-paris-sciences-et-lettres-psl-university-ala-u-s-news-usnwr/

Posted on April 8, 2021May 9, 2021 by snmcgannon · 1 Comment

Ranking of Universities in the EU, 2020-21

Rank	Institution	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
1	LMU Munich 🇩🇪	51	63	32	46	48
2	Heidelberg University 🇩🇪	57	64	42	54	54.25
3	Technical University of Munich 🇩🇪	54	50	41	76	55.25
4	University of Copenhagen 🇩🇰	33	76	84	34	56.75
5	Sorbonne University 🇫🇷	39	83	87	43	63
6	University of Amsterdam 🇳🇱	101	61	66	40	67
7	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 🇧🇪	97	84	45	48	68.5
8	Utrecht University 🇳🇱	52	121	75	54	75.5
9	University of Helsinki 🇫🇮	74	104	98	86	90.5
10	Leiden University 🇳🇱	80	128	70	86	91
11	University of Groningen 🇳🇱	69	128	80	92	92.25
12	Ghent University 🇧🇪	66	135	103	85	97.25
13	Wageningen University & Research 🇳🇱	151	115	62	83	102.75
14	Uppsala University 🇸🇪	77	124	111	101	103.25
15	Erasmus University Rotterdam 🇳🇱	80	197	72	68	104.25
16	Aarhus University 🇩🇰	69	147	106	105	106.75
17	Lund University 🇸🇪	151	97	103	99	112.5
18	Delft University of Technology 🇳🇱	151	57	78	172	114.5
19	University of Freiburg 🇩🇪	101	175	83	168	131.75
20	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 🇳🇱	101	236	116	80	133.25

This is a ranking of the top 20 universities in the European Union ranked relative to each other by average world rank for the year 2020-2021.

The ranking was created by using metadata sourced from the four prominent rankings of world universities (each ranking released in 2020): Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), and U.S. News & World Report (USNWR).

Rank was checked on each list for every EU university ranked on each of the lists. Then, for each university, all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, as shown above. The leftmost column shows the final rank (which is relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked along with the flag of the country in which it is located, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World Rank”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

There were 4 institutions which were ranked on three of the four lists which averaged higher (by those three lists) than at least one university which was ranked having been averaged by all four lists. In some cases, had these averages remained given all four lists, the list would look significantly different. Further details:

Karolinska Institute 🇸🇪 (43 average; unranked by QS) would have placed 1st.
Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL) 🇫🇷 (~45 average; unranked USNWR) would have placed 2nd (counting Karolinska). (UPDATE: see * below for further evaluation.)
Humboldt University of Berlin 🇩🇪 (93 average; unranked by ARWU — find further discussion about why that is here) would have placed 14 (counting Karolinska and PSL).
Free University of Berlin 🇩🇪 (~120 average; unranked by ARWU — find further discussion about why that is via the same link as for Humboldt) would not have placed in the top 20 counting the three institutions above, however, its average is higher than those universities currently placing 19th and 20th (Freiburg and VU Amsterdam, respectively).

Additionally, one institution — Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin 🇩🇪 — was ranked such that it would have appeared in the top 20 (given the above additions: 10th), however, this was only based on its placement of 75 on a single ranking (THE).

Finally, some observations about the final ranking —

Netherlands has the most intuitions in the top 20 in the EU, with 8.
Germany has the second most, with 4, and the Nordic countries together have 5.
Belgium and France are the only two countries with at least one university which makes the list outside of the aforementioned regions.
The top 12 universities in the EU all average within the top 100 in the world.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

* Since creating this list I’ve written an article looking at how USNWR ranks PSL constituents. Ultimately, based on the average of those constituents, PSL’s ranking would place outside the 20 appearing on this list. There are many caveats to this outcome, however. The full article can be found here.

Permalink to this article: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/04/08/ranking-of-universities-in-the-eu-2020-21/

Posted on March 15, 2021March 15, 2021 by snmcgannon

Ranking of Public Universities Worldwide, 2020-21

Rank	Institution	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
1	University of California, Berkeley 🇺🇸	5	30	7	4	11.5
2	ETH Zürich 🇨🇭	20	6	14	26	16.5
3	University of California, Los Angeles 🇺🇸	13	36	15	13	19.25
4	University of Michigan 🇺🇸	22	21	22	17	20.5
5	University of Toronto 🇨🇦	23	25	18	17	20.75
6	Tsinghua University 🇨🇳	29	15	20	28	23
7	University of Washington 🇺🇸	16	72	29	8	31.25
8	University of California, San Diego 🇺🇸	18	54	33	21	31.5
9	University of Melbourne 🇦🇺	35	41	31	25	33
10	Peking University 🇨🇳	49	23	23	51	36.5
11	University of British Columbia 🇨🇦	38	45	34	31	37
12	University of Tokyo 🇯🇵	26	24	36	73	39.75
13	University of Wisconsin – Madison 🇺🇸	32	65	49	41	46.75
14=	LMU Munich 🇩🇪	51	63	32	46	48
14=	University of Sydney 🇦🇺	74	40	51	27	48
16	University of Texas at Austin 🇺🇸	41	71	44	38	48.5
17=	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) 🇨🇭	83	14	43	58	49.5
17=	University of Queensland 🇦🇺	54	46	62	36	49.5
19	McGill University 🇨🇦	78	31	40	51	50
20=	Heidelberg University 🇩🇪	57	64	42	54	54.25
20=	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 🇺🇸	30	95	56	36	54.25
22=	Australian National University 🇦🇺	67	31	59	64	55.25
22=	Technical University of Munich 🇩🇪	54	50	41	76	55.25
24	University of Copenhagen 🇩🇰	33	76	84	34	56.75
25	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 🇺🇸	45	82	48	60	58.75
26	University of New South Wales 🇦🇺	74	44	67	51	59
27	Kyoto University 🇯🇵	34	38	54	125	62.75
28=	Monash University 🇦🇺	85	55	64	48	63
28=	Sorbonne University 🇫🇷	39	83	87	43	63
30	University of Zürich 🇨🇭	56	69	73	62	65
31	University of Amsterdam 🇳🇱	101	61	66	40	67
32	Georgia Institute of Technology 🇺🇸	101	80	38	66	71.25
33=	Chinese University of Hong Kong 🇭🇰	101	43	56	95	73.75
33=	University of Hong Kong 🇭🇰	151	22	39	83	73.75
35	Utrecht University 🇳🇱	52	121	75	54	75.5
36	University of California, Santa Barbara 🇺🇸	49	152	68	56	81.25
37	Seoul National University 🇰🇷	101	37	60	129	81.75
38	Shanghai Jiao Tong University 🇨🇳	63	47	100	122	83
39	University of California, Davis 🇺🇸	91	112	64	66	83.25
40	Ohio State University 🇺🇸	101	108	80	45	83.5
41	Purdue University 🇺🇸	79	109	94	53	83.75
42	Zhejiang University 🇨🇳	58	53	94	135	85
43	University of Minnesota 🇺🇸	40	177	85	47	87.25
44	University of Maryland, College Park 🇺🇸	53	152	90	60	88.75
45	University of Helsinki 🇫🇮	74	104	98	86	90.5
46=	Fudan University 🇨🇳	100	34	70	160	91
46=	Leiden University 🇳🇱	80	128	70	86	91
48	University of Groningen 🇳🇱	69	128	80	92	92.25
49	University of Science and Technology of China 🇨🇳	73	93	87	124	94.25
50	Ghent University 🇧🇪	66	135	103	85	97.25

This is a ranking of the top 50 public universities in the world ranked relative to each other by average world rank for the year 2020-2021. A “public university” is a university which is (1) publicly funded and (2) publicly owned. Thus, for example, no U.K. universities are eligible for this list.

Rank was checked on each list for every public university in the world ranked on each of the lists. Then, for each university, all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, as shown above. The leftmost column shows the final relative placement (relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked along with the flag of the country in which it is located, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World Rank”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

Some observations —

All of the top 50 public universities in the world rank on average within the top 100 universities — public or private — in the world.
There are 14 countries represented on the list.
The 1st most represented region is North America, with 19 universities.
The 2nd most represented region is Europe, with 14 universities.
The 3rd most represented region is Asia, with 11 universities.
The 4th most represented region is Oceania, with 6 universities.
The 1st most represented country overall is the U.S., with 16 universities.
The 2nd most represented countries overall are Australia and China, each with 6 universities.
The 3rd most represented country overall is the Netherlands, with 4 universities.
The next most represented countries are in order as follows: Canada and Switzerland (each with 3), Hong Kong and Japan (each with 2), and Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, and South Korea (each with 1).
The most represented countries within the top 10 are the U.S. (with 5) and China (with 2).
The list which best predicts the summed average is USNWR.
The list which worst predicts the summed average is QS.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Permalink to this article: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/03/15/ranking-of-public-universities-worldwide-2020-21/

This article’s header photograph depicting UC Berkeley is under the Creative Commons license.

Posted on February 26, 2021October 27, 2021 by snmcgannon · 2 Comments

Ranking of Universities in the State of Jefferson, 2020

*The proposed flag for the proposed Southern Oregon – Northern California hybrid state Jefferson.*

This is a ranking of universities in the U.S. proposed-state the State of Jefferson for the year 2020-2021.

A brief explanation about what constitutes the “State of Jefferson”. The State of Jefferson is a proposed U.S. state that includes northern and central portions of the U.S. state of California and southern portions of the U.S. state of Oregon. If you really want to read about how its proposition came about, Wikipedia is willing to let you do so. I’ll just say the “movement” goes back to 1941, the proposed capital is Yreka, CA… and the state would include 5 universities, as far as I can tell. Drawing the state boundaries is tricky because Jefferson isn’t a state, and people have changed their minds over time about what exactly is or isn’t or should or shouldn’t be included. I took the broadest interpretation of the boundaries which — [again,] so far as I can tell — stretch up as far north as Douglas county in Oregon and down as far south as El Dorado in California (according to this map). Then, I looked for universities in these counties and came up with 5 legitimate universities. There were some other question marks. There are also, of course, many community colleges in Jefferson, but this is a university ranking, and thus, those were excluded. If I have missed a university in this region please let me know and I will update the list once I determine its placement (email: tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com).

The ranking was created primarily by referencing the ranking placements of every (identified) university in Jefferson ranked by USNWR ranking Regional Universities West. Additionally, due to the anomalous situation with Oregon Tech, two other rankings were used: USNWR’s Regional Colleges West, and THE’s ranking of universities in the U.S. The situation is as follows: Oregon Tech is classified as a college by USNWR, and thus ranked on their college ranking and not their university ranking. This makes its placement incomparable to those universities ranked by USNWR’s university ranking. So, to situate it with respect to the other universities, I referenced THE’s ranking of universities in the U.S. THE ranks Oregon Tech as tied with Humboldt State (both below Chico State). THE does not rank either SOU or Simpson. However, THE did rank SOU in 2019 — and its ranking then (>800th) is lower than Oregon Tech’s now (501 – 600). This information — combined with SOU’s absence from THE’s 2021 list — has led me to make the judgement that the ranking for Oregon Tech should follow Humboldt State’s on THE. However, there is no ranking to break the tie between Humboldt State and Oregon Tech — both place well on their respective USNWR rankings, and tie each other on THE. So, this explains their placement on my Jefferson ranking.

The overall results were tabled, and are shown below (Table 1.). The leftmost column shows the final rank, the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, and the next three rightward columns show the rank for each given institution in each selected ranking. Note that here ‘NA’ means “not applicable” and ‘NR’ means “not ranked”.

If you should find anything to be in error, please contact me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Rank	Institution	USNWR (Regional Universities West)	USNWR (Regional Colleges West)	THE (U.S.)
1	California State University, Chico	26	NA	336
2=	Humboldt State University	37	NA	=501
2=	Oregon Institute of Technology	NA	5	=501
4	Southern Oregon University	75	NA	NR
5	Simpson University	92	NA	NR

Table 1.

Permalink: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/02/25/ranking-of-universities-in-the-state-of-jefferson-2020-21/

The header image in this article is — to the best of my knowledge — in the public domain.

Posted on February 25, 2021May 9, 2021 by snmcgannon · 6 Comments

List of Top 100 Universities by Highest Rank, 2020-21

This is a list of the highest ranking achieved for every university ranked in the top 100 in the world on any of the four prominent world university rankings (ARWU, QS, THE, and USNWR, i.e.). Thus, so long as a university appears on any one of the four rankings, then it appears on this list — and it appears at whichever spot it ranked highest on any one or more of those lists. You can think of this list in the following way: for each given university, its position on this list represents the highest opinion someone holds of it.

Notes —

In total, 154 universities representing 27 countries are ranked within the top 100 in the world between all four lists.
There are 16 top 10 universities, representing 3 countries which are (in order): the US (with 11 — 3 of which are Californian; 2 of which are Massachusettsan), the UK (with 4 — all of which are English), and Switzerland (with 1).
There are 30 top 20 universities, representing 7 countries which are (in order): the US (with 18 — 6 of which are Californian), the UK (with 5 — 4 of which are English; 1 of which is Scottish), Singapore and Switzerland (each with 2), and Canada, China, and France (each with 1).
There are 78 top 50 universities, representing 17 countries which are (in order): the US (with 34 – 7 of which are Californian), the UK (with 8 — 7 of which are English; 1 of which is Scottish), Australia (with 6), China and Hong Kong (each with 4), Canada and Germany (each with 3), France, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland (each with 2), and Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden (each with 1).
The United States is the 1st most represented country, with 51 universities represented (~33%).
The United Kingdom is the 2nd most represented country, with 18 universities (15 of which are English; 3 of which are Scottish) represented (~12%).
The Netherlands is the 3rd most represented country, with 9 universities represented (~6%).
The countries placing 4th – 8th in representation are (in order): Australia (with 8), Germany (with 7), China and Japan (each with 6), Canada, Hong Kong, and Sweden (each with 5).
There are 32 listed universities outside the western world (~21%).
Universities represent 5 continents.

And finally, some thoughts. It is interesting to note that 15 out of 18 ranked UK universities are highest ranked by QS — a UK-based ranking. This means, if nothing stronger, that QS has the highest opinion of British universities of any of the four prominent rankings. True — someone could object and say that whichever ranking truly has the highest opinion of British universities lists the greatest number of British universities, or has the highest average ranking of British universities, etc. But I think what captures the spirit of these lists is highest rank, and when you talk about highest rank, and look up a university to check its rank, the fact is, when its a UK university, QS will tell you that university is ranked more highly than any other ranking would tell you in ranks a large majority of the time. I might also endorse this stronger claim: QS has a bias for British universities. But this would require a more in-depth look at how it ranks universities in other countries, and also how other rankings rank British universities compared to other countries, etc., and I haven’t looked into it that deeply or in a sufficiently comparative way to fully endorse that claim. But nonetheless, this result is certainly suggestive, and looking for other indicators even superficially shows that a good number of the British universities ranked within the top 100 by QS don’t appear at all in other top 100s. This is definitely something that someone can and should look at further (and perhaps they have).

Along the same lines, 23 out of 27 East and Southeast Asian universities are highest ranked by QS (along with one additional such university ranked equally by THE). Thus, we can again conclude (as above) that QS has the highest opinion of universities in those regions. It’s still not strong enough for bias — but as with the above observation, this is suggestive and someone might be inclined to take a look.

Meanwhile, out of 47 U.S. universities which are highest ranked by only one ranking (i.e., for which there is no shared opinion about its highest placement), only 5 are highest ranked by QS. Meanwhile, ARWU accounts for 18 such rankings, USNWR 15, and THE 9. Thus, we can safely conclude that QS has the lowest opinion of U.S. universities of the four rankings. THE — at 9 — is closer to QS than to USNWR, but just barely. It’s clear that the UK rankings (QS and THE) have a lower opinion of U.S. universities than the Chinese (ARWU) and U.S. (USNWR) rankings.

To sum up:

QS has the highest opinion of British and East and Southeast Asian universities, and the lowest opinion of U.S. universities.
USNWR has the highest opinion of Australian universities.
And the strongest conclusion: British rankings (QS, THE) have a lower opinion of U.S. universities than Chinese and U.S. rankings (ARWU, USNWR) do.

Below you can view the list. If you should find something here is in error, please contact me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Rank	Institution
1	Harvard University 🇺🇸 (ARWU, USNWR) Massachusetts Institute of Technology 🇺🇸 (QS) University of Oxford 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (THE)
2	Stanford University 🇺🇸 (ARWU, QS, THE)
3	University of Cambridge 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (ARWU)
4	California Institute of Technology 🇺🇸 (QS) University of California, Berkeley 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
5	–
6	Columbia University 🇺🇸 (USNWR) ETH Zürich 🇨🇭(QS) Princeton University 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
7	–
8	Imperial College London 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) University of Washington 🇺🇸 (USNWR) Yale University 🇺🇸 (THE)
9	University of Chicago 🇺🇸 (QS)
10	Johns Hopkins University 🇺🇸 (USNWR) University College London 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
11	National University of Singapore 🇸🇬 (QS)
12	Cornell University 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
13	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 🇸🇬 (QS) University of California, Los Angeles 🇺🇸 (ARWU, USNWR) University of Pennsylvania 🇺🇸 (THE)
14	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne 🇨🇭(QS) University of Paris-Saclay 🇫🇷 (ARWU)
15	Tsinghua University 🇨🇳 (QS) University of California, San Fransisco 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
16	–
17	University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor 🇺🇸 (USNWR) University of Toronto 🇨🇦 (USNWR)
18	University of California, San Diego 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
19	–
20	Duke University 🇺🇸 (THE) University of Edinburgh 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (QS)
21	–
22	University of Hong Kong 🇭🇰 (QS)
23	Peking University 🇨🇳 (QS, THE) Washington University in St. Louis 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
24	Northwestern University 🇺🇸 (THE, USNWR) University of Tokyo 🇯🇵 (QS)
25	University of Melbourne 🇦🇺 (USNWR)
26	New York University 🇺🇸 (THE)
27	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 🇭🇰 (QS) London School of Economics 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (THE) University of Manchester 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) University of Sydney 🇦🇺 (USNWR)
28	Carnegie Mellon University 🇺🇸 (THE)
29	–
30	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
31	Australian National University 🇦🇺 (QS) King’s College London 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) McGill University 🇨🇦 (QS) University of British Columbia 🇨🇦 (USNWR)
32	LMU Munich 🇩🇪 (THE) University of Wisconsin-Madison 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
33	University of Copenhagen 🇩🇰 (ARWU)
34	Fudan University 🇨🇳 (QS) Kyoto University 🇯🇵 (ARWU)
35	–
36	Karolinska Institute 🇸🇪 (THE) Paris Sciences et Lettres University 🇫🇷 (ARWU) University of Queensland 🇦🇺 (USNWR)
37	Seoul National University 🇰🇷 (QS)
38	Georgia Institute of Technology 🇺🇸 (THE) University of Texas at Austin 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
39	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology 🇰🇷 (QS) Sorbonne University 🇫🇷 (ARWU)
40	University of Amsterdam 🇳🇱 (USNWR) University of Minnesota 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
41	Technical University of Munich 🇩🇪 (THE)
42	Heidelberg University 🇩🇪 (THE) King Abdulaziz University 🇸🇦 (USNWR)
43	Chinese University of Hong Kong 🇭🇰 (QS) Rockefeller University 🇺🇸 (ARWU) University of Pittsburgh 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
44	University of Colorado at Boulder 🇺🇸 (ARWU) University of New South Wales 🇦🇺 (QS)
45	Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) 🇧🇪 (THE) Ohio State University 🇺🇸 (USNWR) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
46	–
47	Shanghai Jiao Tong University 🇨🇳 (QS)
48	City University of Hong Kong 🇭🇰 (QS) Monash University 🇦🇺 (USNWR) University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
49	University of California, Santa Barbara 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
50	–
51	–
52	Utrecht University 🇳🇱 (ARWU)
53	University of Maryland, College Park 🇺🇸 (ARWU) University of Southern California 🇺🇸 (THE) Zhejiang University 🇨🇳 (QS)
54	Boston University 🇺🇸 (THE)
55	–
56	Tokyo Institute of Technology 🇯🇵 (QS) University of Zürich 🇨🇭 (ARWU)
57	Delft University of Technology 🇳🇱 (QS)
58	University of Bristol 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
59	University of Geneva 🇨🇭 (ARWU) University of Malaya 🇲🇾 (QS)
60	Brown University 🇺🇸 (QS) University of Oslo 🇳🇴 (ARWU)
61	École Polytechnique 🇫🇷 (QS)
62	Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai 🇺🇸 (USNWR) University of Warwick 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) Vanderbilt University 🇺🇸 (ARWU) Wageningen University and Research 🇳🇱 (THE)
63	–
64	University of California, Davis 🇺🇸 (THE)
65	University of Paris 🇫🇷 (ARWU)
66	Ghent University 🇧🇪 (ARWU) National Taiwan University 🇹🇼 (QS) University of Buenos Aires 🇦🇷 (QS)
67	University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center 🇺🇸 (ARWU)
68	Erasmus University Rotterdam 🇳🇱 (USNWR)
69	Aarhus University 🇩🇰 (ARWU) Korea University 🇰🇷 (QS) McMaster University 🇨🇦 (THE) Stockholm University 🇸🇪 (ARWU) University of California, Irvine 🇺🇸 (ARWU) University of Groningen 🇳🇱 (ARWU)
70	Leiden University 🇳🇱 (THE)
71	Emory University 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
72	Osaka University 🇯🇵 (QS)
73	University of Adelaide 🇦🇺 (USNWR) University of Montreal 🇨🇦 (THE) University of Science and Technology of China 🇨🇳 (ARWU)
74	Lomonosov Moscow State University 🇷🇺 (QS) University of Helsinki 🇫🇮 (ARWU)
75	Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin 🇩🇪 (THE) Hong Kong Polytechnic University 🇭🇰 (QS) Pennsylvania State University 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
76	–
77	Pohang University of Science and Technology 🇰🇷 (QS) University of Glasgow 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (QS) Uppsala University 🇸🇪 (ARWU)
78	University of Tübingen 🇳🇱 (THE)
79	Purdue University 🇺🇸 (ARWU) Tohoku University 🇯🇵 (QS) University of Western Australia 🇦🇺 (USNWR)
80	Humboldt University of Berlin 🇩🇪 (THE) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 🇳🇱 (USNWR)
81	University of Auckland 🇳🇿 (QS) University of California, Santa Cruz 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
82	–
83	Nagoya University 🇯🇵 (ARWU) University of Freiburg 🇩🇪 (THE)
84	–
85	Yonsei University 🇰🇷 (QS)
86	Durham University 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
87	University of Birmingham 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) University of Bonn 🇩🇪 (ARWU)
88	University of Basel 🇨🇭 (ARWU) University of Florida 🇺🇸 (ARWU) Sungkyunkwan University 🇰🇷 (QS)
89	Rice University 🇺🇸 (QS)
90	University of Barcelona 🇪🇸 (USNWR) University of Southampton 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
91	University of Leeds 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
92	–
93	University of Sheffield 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS) Weizmann Institute of Science 🇮🇱 (ARWU)
94	–
95	–
96	University of St. Andrews 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (QS)
97	Lund University 🇸🇪 (QS) University of Arizona 🇺🇸 (USNWR)
98	KTH Royal Institute of Technology 🇸🇪 (QS)
99	Université Grenoble Alpes 🇫🇷 (ARWU) University of Nottingham 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (QS)
100	Michigan State University 🇺🇸 (USNWR) Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 🇲🇽 (QS)

Table 1.

Permalink: https://snmcgannon.com/2021/02/24/list-of-top-100-universities-by-highest-rank-2020-21/

Posted on February 18, 2021April 17, 2021 by snmcgannon · 1 Comment

Ranking of Universities in Germany, 2020-21

Published by S. N. McGannon, Feb. 18, 2021

This is a ranking of the top 25 universities in Germany ranked relative to each other by average world rank for the year 2020-2021.

Rank was checked on each list for every university in Germany ranked on each of the lists. Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.

Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown below (Table 1.). The leftmost column shows the final relative placement (relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World Rank”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.

A final note about the table below: because of a dispute regarding Nobel prize attribution, ARWU does not rank Humboldt University Berlin or Free University of Berlin. However, because both universities average so highly between the other three rankings, I previously made the choice to display these universities with their three-rank average among the ranked universities in the place they would occupy were the three-rank average their overall average (see some previous explanation here; and for reference see here). I again chose to undertake this procedure for this ranking. Their rank is simply listed as ‘(NR)’ ( = not ranked). Additionally, another university also unranked by ARWU (University of Mannheim) ends up in the top 25 under this procedure. While I don’t know why ARWU doesn’t rank this university, because it is the only other university which averages in the top 25 when its three-rank average is taken as its average, I have included this university in its would-be place as well.

Some observations —

The original ranking which best predicts the summed average is USNWR.
The original ranking which most poorly predicts the summed average is QS.
QS is the only ranking which fails to place LMU Munich 1st.

If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.

Rank	Institution	ARWU	QS	THE	USNWR	Average World Rank
1	LMU Munich	51	63	32	46	48
2	Heidelberg University	57	64	42	54	54.25
3	Technical University of Munich	54	50	41	76	55.25
(NR)	Humboldt University Berlin	(NR)	117	80	82	93
(NR)	Free University of Berlin	(NR)	130	118	111	~120
4	University of Freiburg	101	175	83	168	131.75
5	University of Bonn	87	240	114	114	138.75
6=	University of Tuebingen	151	175	78	180	146
6=	University of Goettingen	101	195	130	158	146
8	RWTH Aachen University	201	145	107	184	159.25
9	Technical University of Dresden	201	173	152	186	178
10	University of Hamburg	201	228	135	155	179.75
11	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	201	131	201	197	182.5
12	University of Cologne	151	282	145	232	202.5
13	Goethe University Frankfurt	101	311	251	222	221.25
14	Technical University of Berlin	301	148	140	338	231.75
15	University of Muenster	151	356	195	236	234.5
16	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	201	317	198	238	238.5
17	University of Wuerzburg	201	437	140	186	241
18	University of Ulm	301	344	140	316	275.25
19	University of Mainz	201	403	301	214	279.75
20	University of Kiel	201	501	251	274	306.75
21	University of Jena	401	323	251	395	342.5
22	Ruhr University Bochum	401	439	251	372	365.75
23	Technical University of Darmstadt	401	267	301	543	378
(NR)	University of Mannheim	(NR)	307	140	706	~384
24	University of Duisburg-Essen	301	751	201	285	384.5
25	University of Stuttgart	301	333	351	564	387.25

Table 1.

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S.N. McGannon

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